Author. 




Title— 



LCai 



Class 
Book-jXJj^ 



Imprint 



«8Wi»-i &f»o 



-• 5 










^ PUOPEETT OF THE 
UBRiHY OF COiNGKESS 



EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT. 



AN ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



i^etiliff 



w^m 



ATCHISON, KANSAS, JUNE 26, 1878. 



Gov. GEO. T. ANTHONY 



TOPEKA, KANSAS: 

(tEO. AV. martin, KANSAS PUBLISHING HOr!^E. 

1 8 7 8. 



EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT. 



AN ADDEESS ^ 



' BEFORE THE 



Kansas State Teachers' Association, 



ATCHISON, KANSAS, JUNE 26, 18TS, 



BY 

Gov. GEO. T.*^ ANTHONY. 



TOPEKA, KANSAS: 

GEO. W. MARTiy, KANSAS PUBUSHES'G HOrSE. 

187 8. 



ADDRESS. 



Mr. President, and Members of the Kansas State Teachers' 
Association : 

I do not come before you, assuming to be a teacher 
of teachers, an instructor of instructors. It is not my 
purpose to criticise, condemn or commend the means 
adopted and practiced by you. It is enough for me to 
know, in this connection, that you understand the powers 
of man to be indefinitely perfectable by training, and 
that, acting upon this knowledge, your profession is 
steadily rising in the scale of values, drawing to its 
ranks the best minds of our country — men and women, 
intent upon a mastery of the best means to the accom- 
plishment of a great and good end. 

It is my purpose to consume the valuable time you 
have so generously granted me, in discussing education 
in a broader than a technical sense, and in a higher 
and quite different relation than that which it holds to 
the individual. It is of education as a controlling force 
in the formation and maintenance of human governments 
that I desire to speak. I use the term "controlling 
force," in this connection, assuming and believing it a 
truth that education is the paramount power, dictating 
forms of government, and fixing their metes and bounds 
— the theory that governments control and shape edu- 
cation to their wishes and needs, being erroneous. 



A careful study of this subject must, as it seems to 
me, lead to the conclusion that all human governments 
reflect the intelligence and culture of the people com- 
posing them, and represent the measure of restraint 
made necessary by the educational condition of the 
populace. The two theories of government, the despotic 
and the democratic, spring from the logical necessities of 
the governed. If ignorant, the government must be 
despotic; if educated, it may be republican. 

Despotisms rest their claims upon an assumption that 
the people are without capacity for self-rule, and that 
the superior intelligence of kings rules by both divine 
right and human necessity. Under this theory of gov- 
ernment, knowledge is as worthless to the subject as 
wings to a caged eagle. Liberty of conscience and 
civil equality cannot exist, and accident of birth is 
above fact of merit. To obey is the supreme duty of 
the subject; to rule, the divine right of the sovereign. 
Citizenship implies obedience without responsibility, and 
men become parts of a machine, moved by a power 
they neither see nor understand. The limit of 
individual action is less than the natural bounds of 
uncultivated manhood; hence training for citizenship is 
a dwarfing process, by which ambition is crushed, will 
subdued, and self-respect subordinated to respect for the 
reigning power. 

The subject of a despotism need not understand the un- 
derlying principles of law, inasmuch as he has no voice 
in making or executing laws, and few rights under them. 
He need not study political economy, or trouble his mind 
about the rules of commerce or the laws of trade, his 
relations to these being little above that of the weaver's 
shuttle, the ship's hull, or the brick and mortar of the 



bank vault. And, too often he is relieved from the 
study of the Bible by an officious priesthood, which stands 
between him and his God, doling out the word of life 
under an assumed prerogative of omnipotence. 

To such governments popular education is but another 
name for revolution. A cultivated, self-asserting individ- 
uality, in the body of the people, will soon overthrow 
a despotism, no matter how strong it may be entrenched 
behind a throne, or rooted in the doctrine of "divine 
right.^^ The expanding power of a civilization, growing 
in the warm sunlight of a Christian fireside and the com- 
mon school, is irresistible to tyrants. They must finally 
yield to its force, giving place to public judgment and 
the popular will, in the form of government, the enact- 
ment of laws, and the administration of public justice. 

Over against, and antagonistic to the despotic, we find 
the theory of republican government. It is based upon 
the opposite assumption, that man is capable of self-gov- 
ernment, and that, therefore, all just powers of the gov- 
ernment are vested in the governed. This theory, it is 
true, involves a political paradox, and confers upon the 
citizen peculiar and anomalous duties. He becomes at 
once the sovereign and the subject, the ruler and the ruled, 
and must be qualified to perform the functions of each 
in turn. The tenure of life and the measure of liberty 
do not depend upon the will or caprice of kings, but 
upon the wisdom and integrity of the people. The sub- 
ject wears the crown, and wields the sceptre of power. 
He is invested with sovereignty in fact, as well as in 
name, and is charged with the duty of enacting and exe- 
cuting laws; of declaring war and concluding peace. 
His tongue is unfettered, his conscience unbound. He is 
born heir to the ages, and charged with all powers, 



6 

all duties, and all responsibilities ordained of God for the 
exercise of man. 

What wonder is it, then, that in contemplating this sub- 
ject, wise men, good men, hopeful men, are bewildered 
and distrust the stability of popular judgment and pub- 
lic rectitude when raised to such an altitude of power? 
Is it strange that our own cherished government, the only 
representative of its kind which has withstood the test of 
a century of time, and successfully resisted a serious effort 
for its disruption, should be considered an experiment by 
those who have not made the secret springs of our civili- 
zation a special study, or become grounded in a faith 
which comes of a country's love? 

I am not here to group for your pleasure the flow- 
ers of rhetoric, but to feed you with the possibly unpal- 
atable fruits of reason. Let me then, state a vital truth, 
a truth which should be brought home to the understand- 
ing of every citizen. It is that an uneducated, undis- 
ciplined people, ignorant of the fundamental principles of 
a just government, and regardless of the private and 
public rights of individuals, cannot long exist as a nation 
under a republican government; that the permanency 
of our boasted government is not a demonstrated fact' 
nor can it be, with the variable element of popular 
intelligence as its vital force, until our entire people 
come to understand that its perpetuity is a question of 
education, not of statesmanship; that it is the mothers 
at home, and the teachers in the common school, not 
the halls of Congress and the wisdom of cabinets, to 
which faith must look for its pledges of the future; 
that it is to the training of our children for the du- 
ties of sovereign citizens, not to the experience of other 



peoples in free government, to which we must look for 
hope of perpetuity" in our own. 

We need not resort to the tedious process of reason 
to eliminate a truth already made patent by the expe- 
rience of centuries. If time has demonstrated one 
truth, in this connection, more clearly than another, it 
is that a republican government resting upon an illit- 
erate popular suffrage cannot succeed. There must be 
a preparatory training of elementary education, or free 
government will prove a failure. A government de- 
pendent upon the exercise of a popular franchise, when 
a majority of those exercising it cannot read and write, 
can secure to its people neither the blessings of peace 
nor the fruits of industry, and necessity will soon force 
them to seek shelter under a governing intelligence 
outside and above their own. 

Popular ignorance and illiteracy demand, and must 
have, a strong centralized government, invested with 
despotic and irresponsible power in the ratio of the 
density and universality of such ignorance and illit- 
eracy. It was in the light of this truth, that the late 
Emperor Napoleon, in his work entitled " Napoleonic 
Ideas," laid it down as a political axiom, that a de- 
mocracy based on universal suffrage necessarily and log- 
ically culminates in the choice of an Emperor or King, 
by the people, in order to gain the rest of public 
order and secure the fruits of peace. 

True, this is a Napoleonic, not an American, theory; 
yet, if qualified by the addition of the single word, 
"illiterate," no one could seriously question the Em- 
peror's conclusion; for surely a democracy based on an 
illiterate universal suffrage, must culminate as he assumes 
it will. 



I 

8 

The French Republic of 1793 was established upon an 
illiterate universal suffrage^ and for seven years waded 
through a sea of blood, to come out a military despotism 
on the other side. Again in 1848 the same nation set 
up a republic upon popular suffrage, with more than 
half of those exercising the right of franchise unable to 
read the ballots they cast into the electoral urns. At 
the end of four years these same brainless ballots re- 
manded the government back to a military despotism by 
an overwhelming majority. Spain, in the face of these 
examples, and unwarned by the failure of a half- score 
of Spanish colonial republics which had arisen and fallen 
on this continent within the past fifty years, has just 
passed through an experience not unlike that of France, 
her ignorant, untutored populace fleeing from the republic 
of Castellar to the more tolerable despotism of a Bourbon. 

Whatever demagogues may say or the unthinking do, 
all alike must at last gravitate to the fundamental prin- 
ciple, never lost sight of by the true statesman, that the 
governing power must be lodged in the hands of edu- 
cated, trained men, or liberty becomes license and law 
yields to anarchy. On this knowledge Lycurgus made 
education compulsory in Sparta more than twenty -seven 
centuries ago, adding a condition to such education, that 
children educated by the state should belong to the state 
instead of their parents. A few centuries later, Solon 
made the education of every citizen of Athens compul- 
sory. One of these countries was attempting a republic, 
the other a democracy — ; hence the recognition of uni- 
versal education as a chief political factor. The same 
principle found recognition in the eighth century, in the 
Roman empire, where all parents participating in the 
government were compelled to send their children to 



school, to the end that political power should remain in 
educated hands. Conservative England extends the ballot 
as the education of her people extends, not from love 
of popular government, but from the logic of necessity. 
Education cannot be stopped, and it forces the govern- 
ment forward with its own progress. 

All experiments in 'government, in disregard of educa- 
tion as the paramount element of success, have proved 
failures, or ended in public disaster. This is as true of 
despotisms as democracies. A free government cannot be 
maintained where illiteracy predominates, nor can a des- 
potism resist the force of popular education. 

An attempt to build republics upon a foundation of 
ignorant suffrage has entailed an experience upon our own 
country sadly demonstrative of the truth I am endeavor- 
ing to present. Let me recall a chapter of home history. 
The original States of our Union were united under a 
compact and a constitution guaranteeing liberty and equal- 
ity of citizenship. One portion of the original States 
adhered to the conditions of the compact, and provided 
a system of popular education commensurate to their ful- 
fillment. The others clung to an institution which con- 
verted them into despotic oligarchies, at once intolerant 
and brutal to the subjugated class. Chattelhood in man, 
and the relation of master and slave, incident thereto, 
were utterly incompatible with universal education, the 
prime condition of maintaining a republic. The slave 
could not be educated, because with knowledge comes 
power to defend the right. The non-slaveholding whites 
could not command the means of an honorable subsist- 
ence and an intelligent training for their children without 
industry; and manual labor being the lot. of slaves, en- 
forced by the lash instead of incited by rewards, work 



10 

was a degradation too revolting to be seriously contem- 
plated. This condition of antagonism between the gov- 
ernment ordained by the constitution and that enforced by 
the oligarchy, without education in the interest of the 
former, made rebellion in the interest of the latter inev- 
itable. 

The rebellion came — was unsuccessful, and was followed 
by a restoration of political and civil equality, without 
regard to the color or previous condition of their recipi- 
ents. This new condition of citizenship found a civil- 
ization unfitted and disqualified for its duties and respon- 
sibilities. Of a population of 6,887,487, a little more than 
half (3,896,320) were white, and 2,991,185 were colored. 
Of the whites, 820,022 could not read or write, and with 
the blacks illiteracy was a rule almost without exception. 

The ballot, as destructive as powerful in the control 
of human affairs, was put into the hands of a people 
without the least preparatory training for its use. Of 
adult whites, from which came a very large portion of 
the white votes, 317,281 were like the mass of colored 
voters — unable to read the names upon their ballots. 
They were not only illiterate, but untrained in the ethics 
of a common citizenship. The whites had been taught 
to hate the doctrine of human equality, and to look upon 
complexion as a patent of nobility, or an evidence of 
chattelhood, according to color. The blacks, born to bondr- 
age, had been instructed in no law but thai: of obedience, 
no rule but that of unconditional submission. 

The result was precisely such as the logic of facts 
and the lessons of history had foretold. Elections 
were either a fiirce or a tragedy, according to the in- 
tensity of race antagonism and the relative power of 
the contending forces. That they too often proved 



11 

tragedies is attested by three thousand political mur- 
ders, the bloody records of the Chisholtn massacre, and 
a multitude of kindred outrages, alike revolting to every 
theory of law, and every sentiment of humanity. 

I do not recall this painful chapter of our history 
to revive animosities, nor to inveigh against the ruling 
class — the whites of the South. They were what the 
dogma of caste and neglect of education made them, 
and precisely what the same conditions and training 
would have made of us. That they were in such 
condition and the victims of such training was a mat- 
ter of birthright, not of choice. It was more a mis- 
fortune than a crime, commending them to the sym- 
pathy of those educated in a school of freedom and 
trained in a higher code of political morality. 

I do not recall it as a political, but as an educational 
question, to show by . this eifort at reconstruction how 
impossible it is to secure good government, with its 
attendant blessings of public peace and personal safety, 
in a state or nation ruled by an illiterate suffrage. 

By all historic precedent these States would have 
been turned over to military control, but this was re- 
volting to our cherished traditions, and not to be es- 
timated as even a remote possibility. We might, 
however, have accomplished the end by remanding 
them to the condition of Territories, and holding them 
under the fostering care of the general government 
until the slow but sure processes of education had 
fitted them for self-government. Thus prepared, they 
would have assumed their normal relations of free 
States of a republican government much sooner than can 
now be made possible. But magnanimity and sympa- 



12 

thy were stronger than precedent and reason, and the 
substantial work of reconstruction is yet to be done. 

The real problem of reconstruction must be worked 
out in the school-room, not in the halls of Congress. 
It is the work of the schoolmaster, not the states- 
man — a question of learning, not of law. Until the 
people of those States, and of the General Government, 
come to understand that universal education can alone 
restore order, neutralize race antagonism, and make pos- 
sible an honest, intelligent administration of public affairs, 
and provide this natural and only remedy for the polit- 
ical ills of the South, the true work of reconstruction 
will not have been begun. One fact should be patent 
to every one by this time, here or there, and that is, 
that these States can never secure order at home, and 
regain their rightful relations and just influence in the 
Union, so long as fifty- one per cent, of their voting 
population remain too illiterate to read and write. 

If the orators of our country will allow the grand 
old eagle a rest on the coming national anniversary, and 
substitute for buncombe a plain, dispassionate presenta- 
tion of illiteracy as a factor in American politics, they 
will deserve well of their country, even though they 
fail in illuminating the heavens with their forensic fire- 
works. Let them tell thoughtful people, on that day 
of days for review and retrospect, that there dwell 
within our national limits one million six hundred and 
twelve thousand two hundred and thirteen Ameeican 
SOVEREIGNS who are unable to read their ballots or 
their Bibles. 

To aid them in this patriotic work — and there are 
doubtless some of them present — I cheerfully furnish 
the details of illiteracy by States, grouped in three 



13 



classes : the Southern States, the Northern States, and 
the Territories — showing such illiteracy by race as well 
as by States : 

ILLITERACY ABOVE THE AGE OF TWENTY-ONE IN NORTHERN STATES. 



STATES. 


WHITE. 


col'd. 


TOTAL. 


STATES. 


WHITE. 


col'd. 


TOTAL. 


California 


12,362 

2, o05 

8, 990 

40,801 

36, 331 

14, 782 

5,994 

6,516 

30,920 

17,543 

8,041 

956 


468 

63 

627 

3,969 

3,182 

635 

2,772 

69 

822 

1,015 

44 

93 


12, 830 

2,368 

9,617 

44,770 

39,513 

15.417 

8,766 

6,585 

31,742 

18,558 

8,085 

1,049 




474 

3,361 

14,515 

73, 208 

41,439 

1,085 

61,350 

5,922 

6,867 

17, 637 


15 

38 

2,881 

3,912 

7,531 

48 

5, 758 

291 

45 

185 


489 




New Hampshire, 
New Jersey 


3 399 


Connecticut 


17,396 

77 120 




Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 


48, 970 
1 133 






67 108 




6 213 


Massachusetts .. 


6 912 






17, 822 




Total 






411,399 


34,463 


445, 862 









ILLITERACY ABOVE THE AGE OF TWENTY-ONE IN SOUTHERN STATES. 



STATES. 


WHITE. 


col'd. 


total. 


STATES. 


WHITE. 


COL'D. 


TOTAL. 




17,429 
13,610 
3,466 
3,876 
21,899 
43,826 
12, 048 
13,344 
9,357 


91,017 108,446 
23,681 37.291 




34,780 
33,111 
12,490 
37,713 
17,505 
27,646 
15,181 


18,002 
68,669 
70,8.30 
55,938 
47,235 
97,908 
3,186 


52,780 
101,780 




N. Carolina 

S. Carolina 




3,765 
16,806 
100,551 
37, 889 
76,612 
27,123 
80,810 


7,231 
20,682 
122, 450 
81,715 
86,660 
40,467 
90,167 


83 320 




93 651 




Texas 


64,740 
125 554 








W. Virginia ; 

Total 


18,367 






Mississippi 


317 281 


820,022 


1 137 303 









ILLITERACY ABOVE THE AGE OF TWENTY-ONE IN THE TERRITORIES. 



TERRITORIES. 


WHITE. 


col'd. 


TOTAL. 


TERRITORIES. 


WHITE. 


col'd. 


TOTAL. 




1,167 
403 

1,214 

315 

399 

14,892 


1 
6 
7,599 
4 
34 
58 


1,168 
409 

• 8,813 
319 
433 

14, 950 


Utah 


1,137 

437 
326 


8 
15 
33 


1,145 




Washington 


452 


Dist. of Columbia, 


359 




Total 






20, 290 


7,758 


28,048 




• 







In order to a more complete understanding of the 
true relation of illiteracy to the governing power of our 
country and the several States composing it, I have 
prepared a statement showing the whole number of 
adult citizens, the number of adult illiterate citizens, and 
the rate per cent, of such illiterates. This being limited 
to the legally qualified voters in the seyeral States, 
grouped, as before, in two classes — Northern and South- 



14 



ern — is at once explicit and comprehensive in its show- 
ing: 

NUMBER OF ADULT MALE CITIZENS, WITH NUMBER AND PER CENT. OF 
ILLITERATE VOTERS, IN THE NORTHERN STATES. 



Slates. 



California 

Connecticut.. 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Maine 

Massachu'tts 

Michigan 

Minnesota ... 

Nebraska 

Nevada 



Adult 

male 

citizens. 



145, 802 

127, 499 

542,833 

376,780 

255,802 

99, 069 

153, 160 

312,790 

274,459 

75, 274 

36,169 

18,652 



Adult 

male 

illiterate 



12, 830 

9,617 

44,770 

39, 513 

15,417 

8,766 

6, 585 

31, 742 

18, 558 

8,085 

1,049 

489 



8.6 
7.5 
8.2 

10.4 
6.0 
8.8 
4.2 

10.1 
6.7 

10.7 
2.9 
2.6 



States. 



New Hampsh'e, 

New Jersey 

New York 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania... 
Rhode Island... 

Vermont 

Wisconsin 

Av. per cent, 
of illiterates. 



Adult 
male, 
citizens. 



83,361 
194,109 
981,587 
592,350 

24,608 
776, 845 

43, 996 

74,867 
203,077 



Adult 

male 

illiterate 



3,399 
17,396 
77,120 
48,970 

1,133 
67, 108 

6,213 

6,912 
17,822 



4.0 
8.9 
7.8 
8.2 
4.6 
8.6 
14.1 
9.2 
8.7 



7.6 



NUMBER OF ADULT MALE CITIZENS, WITH NUMBER AND PER CENT. OF 
ILLITERATE VOTERS, IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 





Slates. 


Adult 

male 

citizens. 


Adult 

male 

illiterate. 


>T3 
: E 




States. 


Adult 

male 

citizens. 


Adult 

male 

illiterate 


ft 


1 

2 
3 


Alabama 

Arkansas 

Delaware 


202,046 
100,403 
28,207 
38,854 
234,919 
282,305 
159,001 
169,845 
169,737 


108,446 

37,291 

7,231 

20, 682 

122,450 
81,715 
88, 660 
40, 467 
90, 167 


53.6 
36.1 
25.6 
50.6 
52.1 
28.5 
55.7 
23.8 
53.1 


10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
15 
16 


Missouri 

N. Carolina... 
S. Carolina ... 

Tennessee 

Texas 


380, 235 
214,224 
146,614 
259,016 
169,258 
266,680 
93,435 


52, 782 
101,780 
83,320 
93,651 
64, 740 
125,554 
18,367 


13.8 
47.5 
56.8 
36.1 






38 2 


6 
7 
8 
9 


•Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maryland 

Mississippi... 


Virginia 

W. Virginia... 

Av. per ct. 
of illiterates, 


47.0 
19.6 






33.6 









In this array ' of data, gathered from the last United 
States census, will be found abundant food for a healthy 
Fourth - of- July reflection, if not oration. It presents a 
power of ignorance at the ballot-box sufficient to carry 
closely - contested elections in the nation and in the sev- 
eral States. It suggests that the State of New York 
would find it both better and cheaper to educate and fit 
for self-support and honorable industry her 77,120 illit- 
erates, than to support them as tramps on the road, cul- 
prits in prison and paupers in the almshouse, as fully 
eight -tenths of them are now supported. It reminds us 
that Pennsylvania, with her 67,108 illiterates, would do 
well to have more common schools and less labbr strikes, 



15 

and that all of us should find in it a forcible reminder 
that knowledge is not less a power than is ignorance a 
peril to our government. 

Let no one misunderstand me. This is not an argu- 
ment for restricted suffrage, but a plea for universal, com- 
pulsory education. The ballot once given cannot be 
taken away; and if the thought of strengthening our gov- 
ernment by the disfranchisement of men, black or white, 
rich or poor, lettered or unlettered — in the North or in 
the South — has been entertained, it had better be aban- 
doned at once. The right of suffrage may be extended, 
but never restricted; and the majority will be the monarch 
in this country so long as the union of States exists. 
There may be many steps from a Despotism to a Democ- 
racy, but there can be but one from a Democracy to a 
Despotism. 

The subject of education, considered in its influence 
upon the individual, is one of profound concern to us 
all, the possibilities of manhood being fixed to a very 
great degree by the training of youth. The race has 
been grand in power or groveling in weakness, honored 
in wisdom or despised in foolishness, more according to 
the prevailing system and shaping influence of education 
than from any or every other cause. But how im- 
measurably above personal gains and values do the results 
of education become to the State, if the thoughts 1 am 
presenting are founded in reason and represent the truth. 

Popular education is made an inalienable right of the 
citizen, and the only sure foundation of the State; school 
privileges arise to the dignity of a birthright, and a system 
of education ordained by law and sustained by popular 
tax, finds a complete vindication ; compulsory education, 
as applied to a forced attendance upon common schools, 



16 

becomes a misnomer, as much as would the calling of 
life or liberty compulsory, because they are blessings given 
to us without the right of abridgment by others, or 
alienation by ourselves. 

If our government embraced a harmonious civilization, 
crystalized by time into a horaogenity of habit, tradition 
and religion, the work of education would be com- 
paratively a simple one. But this is not the case. 
We are a people with no distinguishing quality in 
common ; no identicalness of race, language or habit. 
We came together from all quarters of the globe, speak- 
ing every tongue, creatures of all habits, believers in 
every religion, and bearing the impress of every mental 
and physical peculiarity incident to the race. One-seventh 
are foreign-born, and nearly one-fourth children of for- 
eign-born parents. 

It is idle to attempt a denial of antagonism in 
thought, habit, hope, ambition and religion, amid 
such incongruous elements. It is true that we are 
apparently a united and harmonious people, but 
such union and harmony are more apparent than real. 
Until the inevitable laws of population, and the equal- 
izing effects of a common education, have done their work 
in converting them into a homogeneous type of civiliza- 
tion, there will be, there must be, a conflict for supremacy, 
each struggling to impress its own individuality upon 
the others. The shaping and control of this work of 
assimilation, and the creation of a new and distinctive 
nationality for our country, is the crucial test which 
is to determine our experiment of popular government; 
and it is to the wisdom of the educator, not to the 
skill of the law- maker, we must look for a successful 
issue. This is the mission, this the work of the pub- 



17 

lie school. The chief and only justifiable end of a 
system of education ordained of law and supported by 
public tax, is the training of youth for the duties and 
responsibilities of citizenship. To this end all systems 
and methods of instruction, and all courses of study 
must bend. Education must become something more 
than intellectual development. The discipline of the 
mind as the chief end of education must become repug- 
nant to public judgment. Mere mental culture must 
not command its old-time respect as a distinguishing 
mark of greatnes,s, and pretense of such attainments be 
allowed to pass for learning. The scholar who revels 
in the higher mathematics, but who cannot read the 
figures on a carpenter's square, or crucifies his mother 
tongue in boasting of his classical attainments, must be 
rated as a charlatan. 

It is not learning's semblance, but learning's self, our 
country needs to make it peaceful and prosperous at home 
and a recognized power abroad. It must provide for the 
development of all the faculties — moral, intellectual, and 
physical — in a learning which is a power in the hands 
of its possessor for daily use; a learning which blossoms 
and fruits in practical works ; a learning which has the 
attributes of character as well as knowledge, making it a 
contribution to the sum of public wisdom, and an element 
of strength and dignity to the State. It must embrace 
ethics as well as letters, teaching exact and rigid rules of 
right, and inculcating temperance, chastity and patience, 
to earn a mastery of the true conditions of an honorable 
existence, as the distinguishing characteristics of a true 
manhood and an exalted civilization. 

In the presence of this distinguished assembly of 
teachers, representing all portions of our own and a 



18 

large number of sister States, and in view of the 
thoughts already presented, I cannot resist an impulse 
to speak of the teacher's vocation, and its rightful re- 
lation to the other professions. It has been a matter 
of surprise, and a source of regret to me, that the 
business of teaching has failed to command recognition 
as first in the list of learned professions, instead of 
being held subordinate and often an incident, a help 
in the pursuit of the others. Measured by the stand- 
ard of individual necessity and public value, it is im- 
measurably above the profession of theology, medicine 
or law. I speaic now of these professions in relation 
to their resultant influence in forming and preserving 
society and government. 

The educator is the pioneer who goes before the min- 
ister and fits the soil to receive the seed of life. The 
most devoted religious teacher cannot successfully cultivate 
the Christian graces upon the sterile soil of ignorance 
and superstition. Indeed, Faith, Hope and Charity are 
the legitimate fruits of a correct education — fruits sweetest 
to the taste and most nourishing to the body of a culti- 
vated understanding. All missionaries to heathen coun- 
tries recognize this, and make the spelling-book the 
gateway for the Bible, teaching first and then preach- 
ing. 

Physicians cannot protect man from ills incident to 
ignorance and disregard of himself. When it shall come 
to pass that man is educated up to a knowledge and 
respect for the laws of life and health, the medical pro- 
fession, like that of surgery, will be reduced to the duty 
of providing for the hidden contingencies of accident, in- 
stead of watchfulness in protecting the race from the 
results of ignorance and stupidity. 



19 

The lawyer cannot so write or administer law as to 
make available to man rights of which he is ignorant, 
nor can he secure a faithful performance of duties and 
obligations not understood. A wise and considerate 
education would bring man in so close accord with 
law as to make it a code understood and respected, 
without the intervention of the learned in law, or the 
rigor of force, save in extreme and exceptional circum- 
stances. 

Instead, then, of finding students engaged in teach- 
ing as a means of mastering the art of preaching, 
bleeding and pleading, we should find them diligent 
students of theology, medicine and law, as essential 
qualifications for the paramount profession of teaching. 

I mean no disrespect in this comparison, but intend 
to assert what I believe to be true — that in a just 
scale of values and measure of results, the profession of 
the educator should stand first in the list, and command 
culture and compensation commensurate to its rank. 
Then education would embrace the formation of char- 
acter as well as the culture of mind, and it would cease 
to be the chief work of the other professions to deal 
with and modify the effects of a neglected or defective 
education ; a task which, with all the aids of religion 
and law, they now find it so difficult to perform. 

I appeal to you, then, as teachers and patriots, to 
give careful heed to your work, that its results be such 
as to force even a broader recognition of liberty and 
equality than that declared by the Fathers. Give us 
the substance, not the shadow, of popular education. 
Devise means whereby the development of memory may 
give place to expansion of thought, will and action, 
remembering that the development of man, not memory 



20 

— the citizen, not the scholar — is the prime object of 
schooling. Educate the faculties required to originate 
enterprises, to form and adhere to just purposes, and 
to prudently use the largest liberties, to the end that 
we become the best governed, because the least governed^ 
people upon the earth. 

In this yoo have a work of unmeasured magnitude 
and responsibility. You must originate, not copy, in 
educational arts, holding the demands of the hour 
.above theory and precedent. You must give us edu- 
cation for use; the mind disciplined, the understanding 
enlightened, generous impulses quickened, temper equal- 
ized, manners correct and the body vigorous — the 
fullness of manhood perfected. Then shall the crown 
jewels of human liberty become safe in the keeping 
of a people made by education, wise as counselors and 
safe as rulers in peace, efficient as - commanders and 
obedient as soldiers in war. 




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